Logitech SmartDock

If you need to hold regular meetings with employees or partners around the globe, the Logitech SmartDock conferencing system offers a well-designed solution for your business.

Logitech is getting into business collaboration in a big way. The company's new SmartDock provides an elegant, consistent way to conduct meetings and videoconferences.

Feb. 19, 2017PC Mag ME Team

In the conference room my reviews team uses for weekly meetings, there's a laptop, a TV on the wall to display its screen, and a high-power webcam for communicating with remote team members. But when other groups use the room, they often disconnect the TV, the webcam, or both from the PC. Logitech's SmartDock solves this pesky problem, among others. This tamper-resistant dock has an embedded Microsoft Surface Pro 4 tablet running a special version of Skype for Business, called Skype Room System, that makes controlling conference calls and presentations a cinch. It's a good option if you don't need a full-blown (and more expensive) collaboration-and-conferencing display with touch-screen whiteboard capabilities, such as the Microsoft Surface Hub.

Packages and Pricing

You don't buy the SmartDock in a store, but rather through systems integrators such as CDW, Synnex, and Tech Data. (You can find many more distributors on Logitech's website.) Developed in collaboration with Microsoft, it's offered in several packages. The Base package ($1,999 at various online retailers), for companies that already have a conferencing webcam, includes just the Logitech SmartDock and a Surface Pro 4 loaded with Skype Room System (as well as with a full copy of Windows 10 Enterprise). The Small Meeting Rooms package ($2,399), which is the setup I used for this review, adds a ConferenceCam Connect. The Mid-Size Meeting Rooms package ($2,998) substitutes that webcam with a more-powerful Logitech Group conferencing webcam and audio system. Finally, the Large Meeting Rooms package ($3,399) adds two extension audio units to accommodate larger conference room tables. The dock alone lists for $599, but I at the time of writing, I could only find it in the $750 range.

Hardware

The SmartDock is a circular, swiveling dock that holds a Core i5–based Surface Pro 4 at a comfortable 45-degree angle. The glossy black unit measures 9.4 by 13.2 by 8.2 inches (HWD). It's also fairly heavy, at a little over 6 pounds, and that's a plus: You don't want a stand that's easily tipped over or purloined from your conference room. In general, the device has a simple, attractive, and businesslike appearance.

One key to understanding the SmartDock is the way it extends the Surface Pro's interfaces. The tablet itself only offers two connectors (one USB 3.0, one Mini DisplayPort) for peripherals. The tablet's Surface Connect port (which usually connects to the power cable) lets the SmartDock extend I/O to include two HDMI ports supporting up to 1080p60, one HDMI input supporting content sharing up to 1,920 by 1,200 at 60 frames per second (fps), a Gigabit Ethernet (RJ45) port, three USB 3.1 Type-A ports, and a Kensington security slot.

Taking the Surface Pro out of the dock is possible, but doing so involves removing about a dozen screws. Importantly, there's no access to the actual ports on the dock—instead, Logitech provides cables for everything. That saves you from the headache of other conference room visitors unplugging things, which can delay your subsequent meetings while you plug in devices again. As mentioned earlier, I know about this from firsthand experience: I can't tell you how many times I've shown up for our weekly meeting and everything has been disconnected from the freestanding laptop we use.

Setup

The package I received didn't include assembly instructions, but those are readily available online at Logitech's support site. The necessary star-headed Torx screwdriver is included to help to install the Surface Pro into the dock, which you do by removing four screws that secure the bottom of the base. Doing so reveals no fewer than eight ports: three HDMI (two out, one in), the three USB 3.1 Type-A, Ethernet, and power.

Once I took off the covers, plugged in all the cables, and powered up the Surface Pro 4, the software setup launched. The four-step process starts by asking you to agree to the license terms. Second, you sign in to your Skype for Business account and enter any Exchange server or additional domains.

Next you can enable two feature settings: hiding meeting names (which can be critical for meetings about compensation and the like) and automatically sharing the Surface's screen to any plugged-in display. Finally, you're asked to attach the Surface to the dock; plugging in the dock did the trick, since the Surface was already embedded. A notification told me that the Surface wasn't connected to the Internet. You can only connect via Ethernet, which seems a limitation, albeit one based on security and reliability. It could, however, be a deal breaker if your conference room isn't wired with Ethernet, though that's not likely to be the case for most businesses.

Software

The embedded Surface Pro 4 is preloaded with Windows 10 Enterprise and the Skype for Rooms software. The latter requires Skype for Business, which, as I found when setting up the Surface Hub, is not exactly trivial to configure. It's a good idea to read Microsoft's support page on setting up Skype Room Systems to learn how to create a device account for the SmartDock. It requires running PowerShell scripts, just as setting up a Surface Hub does. Shops with in-house IT support (the intended audience for the product), however, should have no trouble.

There are other similarities to the Surface Hub. For example, you invite it to a meeting as a resource, and its version of Windows isn't associated with an individual user's account. The SmartDock doesn't, however, offer some of things in the Hub's custom version of Windows 10, such as the ability to forget the last meeting conducted so that the next group in the room doesn't see its details. Like the Hub, it can detect motion in the room, waking up and going to sleep as people come and go.

When you start the device, you see a red bar across the top of the screen with a padlock icon, indicating that it's locked for its one function in life. After completing setup and connecting via Ethernet, I was able to sign in to my Skype for Business admin account. I saw three big button choices on the screen: New Meeting, Present, and Invite this Room. (If you have PBX capability with your Skype for Business setup, you also see a Dial Pad button, as shown.) With the New Meeting Button, I was able to immediately start a video call with a remote Skype user.

For meetings that have already been scheduled, you join by simply pressing the tile on the screen with that meeting name. Any video participants will be tiled on the display you attach to the SmartDock, while the control interface will remain on the Surface Pro's display. The interface lets you share documents such as PowerPoint presentations with the group, and on-site meeting attendees can plug their laptops into the SmartDock's HDMI cable to pass through their screens to the big screen.

All this is well and good for your in-house employees who are set up with Skype for Business accounts, but, thankfully, adding regular, non-Business Skype users is also easy. You can also dial in outside attendants via standard phone calls from the dock, as long as you've signed up for PTSN capability in your Skype for Business account.

The SmartDock device is by default considered a Presenter, which means you can mute, make presenters, remove, or lock the video of other participants. That last one means that the designated participant's screen will be displayed full-screen for everyone else in the meeting.

The "Invite this room" button simply pops up instructions on how to invite the SmartDock to a meeting in either Skype or your Office 365 Calendar. It's a snap: Just click on the Location box and you'll see Add Room as an option. Your SmartDock will be a room choice (helpfully indicating if it's free at the time of your meeting); click on that and you're good to go. Any scheduled meetings appear on the home screen at the time of the meeting. You can rejoin a meeting that's still current, and this calendar integration is a nice option for recurring meetings that require remote folks to dial in.

The Present option lets you plug in any video source, most likely a computer, using the included HDMI cable, and have its display mirrored on the large meeting room display as well as on any remote participants' displays. You can either do this from the startup menu, or if you're already in the middle of a meeting, by going to the Content tab and hit the HDMI option. You can easily turn the presenter display on or off from the SmartDock.

There are a couple of missing capabilities I would like to see added to the interface. For example, there are no audio or video configuration options to set up those devices from the SmartDock's main interface. In testing, my Logitech ConferenceCam wasn't picking up the sound from a remote room participant, but I had no way to set it up in the Skype Room System interface, as I could easily in regular Skype. Instead, I had to restart the Surface and log in to the admin account. Other things missing from the standard Skype client are the abilities to share document files or view a remote user's computer desktop. I'd also love it if the SmartDock could control a presentation shared by a remote user, as the Surface Hub can.

A Smart Dock Indeed

The Logitech SmartDock offers an elegant and clever solution for groups that need consistency and simplicity in their meeting rooms. I miss a few standard Skype capabilities like screen sharing, and one issue I see for some organizations is that the unit requires you to use Skype for Business, and therefore Office for Business, either hosted as Office 365 or on a local Exchange server. But that shouldn't be a problem for the larger corporations that are the target audience for the SmartDock.